Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Dream Last Night

Jen and I were out in the country somewhere. She had either bought a new car or was renting one. I was coerced into driving somewhere by myself. On the return trip, there was a bridge of some sort to be crossed. Traveling at a good clip, in the right lane, I drove onto it. Immediately, an exit appeared. I quickly changed to the lane to my left, having to cross the solid lines dividing the exit from the highway. Immediately another exit appeared. Frantically, I unsuccessfully attempted to change lanes again. At typical highway speeds, I barreled down (literally, the exit was situated at an incline from the bridge, which was still ascending) the exit for perhaps 100 meters. At this point, the road climbed sharply for several meters and then ceased. Somehow I managed to get out of the car unharmed, but it went over the edge and into the river below.

After inexplicably returning home, I had to explain how I had lost not only the car, but a backpack and a book which it contained. Each of these losses seemed more significant than the last.

About Me

I'm a software professional with over 15 years industry experience ranging from startups (with as few as four people) to multinational banks. I've built network software, database software, user-facing software, backends, distributed systems, games, business engines, application servers, and more. I've lead teams and followed leaders (great and otherwise).

I'm also deeply interested and involved in environmental protection, clean food, and how agricultural systems impact human health. I live and work on a small farm with my family building first-hand experience with as many of the related systems as I can. You can read more about that side of my life on my other blog.

Supporting Open Source

I'm a prolific contributor to free and open source software projects, both on a volunteer and paid basis. I greatly appreciate donations to support the volunteer efforts. Feel free to let me know which software you're interested: it's always great to hear from users and a downside of a lot of this work is not getting to hear from the people who use the result very much.